Category Archive: Customer short stories
Surveys (and leaps) we like to take
Using Emma's free feature to request customer feedback and take your business to new heights
I love a good challenge, so when I saw the opportunity to go skydiving *and* meet some Emma customers in person, I couldn’t resist. Located in rural Chester, South Carolina, they are the Carolinas’ premier drop zone and consistently draw adrenaline junkies from far and wide (even design consultants from Nashville, Tennessee!). I recently caught up with James LaBarrie, the general manager of Skydive Carolina, to discuss the experience I had using their service and an Emma feature he has found quite beneficial.
Kelley en route to earth. Also pictured: just another day at the office for her tandem, Chuck, from Skydive Carolina.
Skydive Carolina regularly uses the Emma survey feature that’s free with every account because it’s a great way to keep a finger on the pulse of their customers. James is passionate about the company’s commitment to building relationships with clients and providing superior customer service.
“We aren’t only hoping to please our customers,” he says. “We are hoping to amaze them. But when we fail, I see it as an opportunity to create a raving fan.”
Of course, an important element of the service experience is the customer’s ability to easily provide feedback and the company’s willingness to listen. With a role that is mostly behind the scenes, James does not get the opportunity to interact with each customer who visits. For him, it is often the survey alone that provides the valuable feedback they need.
“The survey is a great way to know when we’re falling short and when all is well,” he adds. And in those rare instances that a customer does not have the best experience possible, James has been known to follow up with them personally.
The Skydive Carolina survey inquires about everything from how easy it was to find the location to how much the client liked the photo taken during the jump; each bit of information helps James make educated decisions about the business. But it’s not just about asking the right questions — James is also very intentional about asking at the right time as well. Jumpers receive a trigger email the day immediately following their dive, when the experience is still fresh enough to recall details.
Survey says: Everyone's gotta try this.
It’s amazing how much information is available if you simply request it. When thinking about your own business, consider the difference that customer feedback could make for you and follow Skydive Carolina’s lead. Heck, you may also like to follow their lead right out of a plane — you definitely wouldn’t regret it!
Here’s to surveyed customers, empowered email marketing and thrilling jumps.
Stylishly formatted email campaigns, part two
How customers are making the most of Emma's layouts
Last month, we brought you five examples of customers using Emma’s simple, newsletter and advanced layouts in stylish ways. We received a lot of great feedback — most notably, that seeing solid campaign examples helps folks conceive their own fresh ideas — and so we wanted to follow up with some more outstanding campaigns.
Take a look at these examples, and why they work so well.
The Jane Goodall Institute (Hong Kong) | Layout: Newsletter 7
Click the campaign example to see the full version.
The Newsletter 7 layout combines alternating text and image boxes — without image captions — and works well if you’ve got short, differentiated articles to feature. (If you like this layout but need image captions, use Newsletter 9.)
Why it works:
- The Jane Goodall Institute does a lovely job creating visual balance. Images are about the same width and height across the campaign, and each story’s copy extends to the bottom of each image, and not much farther.
- They’ve selected images that complement the colors in the stationery’s header, lending a professional look to the email.
Creative Advocacy Network | Layout: Advanced 14
Click the campaign example to see the full version.
In last month’s post, SoDA also used the Advanced 14 layout. Its sidebar is ideal for special offers, ads and reminders. Here, CAN features a “Donate Now” button and an event calendar.
Why it works:
- Images are small and equally sized. (You’re sensing a trend here, right?)
- CAN features longer stories in the main well and reserves the sidebar for short calls to action and reminders.
Brad Paisley | Layout: Newsletter 8
Click the campaign example to see the full version.
Brad Paisley’s account, a sub account of Emma agency partner MusicCityNetworks, utilizes the Newsletter 8 layout to announce ticket sales and details about fan club membership.
Why it works:
- At the risk of sounding like a broken record (no pun intended!), short text blurbs and consistently sized images really do work.
- Horizontal lines, added using the Emma editor’s toolbar, break up sections of the campaign.
Spice of Life Catering Co. | Layout: Newsletter 4
Click the campaign example to see the full version.
Newsletter 4 works well if you’ve got a selection of images to highlight, with a longer story for the main text box on the right.
Why it works:
- The campaign announces upcoming Plated Landscape events (a series of “traveling dinners” in city gardens, fields and on rooftops), paired with images from prior events, to bring life to the events.
- The content in the main text box is a perfect length, minimizing white space at the bottom of the email.
We hope these examples have inspired you, and if you’ve got questions about arranging your campaign’s images and text, our support team is here to help.
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Have you designed a stylish email that you’d like to share? We’d love to see it. Share its URL in the comments below or over on Twitter.
Meet BookPage
How an Emma customer reaches readers everywhere
BookPage distributes a book review publication to more than 450,000 readers monthly through bookstores and libraries. The Nashville-based company also sends more than 270,000 emails per month. Keeping track of all of those emails — and the varying interests of their subscribers — is a challenging task, one that Associate Editor, Eliza Borné, has fine-tuned. Here, we’ll take a look at one of BookPage’s email campaigns and share how Eliza and her team have developed an email strategy that works for them and their growing list of subscribers.
Click to see the full campaign.
The send-off, at-a-glance
+ Sent on Feb 1 at 6:00 am to 25,598 people
+ Open rate: 53.1%
+ Click-through rate: 53.3%
+ 26 social shares
+ Created using a custom layout
BookPage sends their bi-monthly BookPageXTRA, like the one to the left, to more than 25,000 recipients. In the two years that Eliza has been managing XTRA, its open rate has been a steady 40-50% (or more), and it’s now benefiting from an increasing number of social shares on Twitter and Facebook. Maybe even more impressive than that, its list of subscribers has increased by 65%.
These striking results don’t happen over night, and Eliza says they’ve learned a few tricks along the way. Let’s take a closer look at their email strategy…
About their email strategy
In addition to BookPageXTRA, BookPage sends out a bi-monthly newsletter about books for kids and teens, a monthly newsletter to librarians and even a book review a day. They keep track of their subscribers and their preferences by posting a comprehensive signup form on their website. Subscribers select the types of newsletters they’d like to receive, and because the signup form is tied to the appropriate audience groups in Emma, the groups are automatically sorted in BookPage’s account. Just after subscribing, they receive an automatic welcome email. It’s an easy way for BookPage to thank new subscribers and to connect them to additional resources, including links to their YouTube page, blog and more.
Managing Editor Trisha Ping, Associate Editor Eliza Borné and Associate Publisher Julia Steele work on an edition of BookPageXTRA.
At BookPage, email marketing is collaborative. Employees from both the editorial and advertising side of their company come up with ideas — they spend a lot of time brainstorming and plan content in advance — and everyone helps to proof the emails.
Email is the quickest way for them to communicate with their readers, and they want to make sure their content is fresh. Eliza shares some of the ways they keep their readers engaged:
We keep readers excited with “best” lists — we’ve found that our audience responds most to any kind of “most-anticipated” or “top 10″ list. We hook them in the email by giving them the beginning of the list, then ask them to click through for the whole shebang. Click-throughs are important to us because we want our newsletters to introduce readers to BookPage.com and our blog, The Book Case. In the email above, we asked readers to click through to our blog and comment with book titles they’re anticipating but that didn’t make our list. In another XTRA, we crowd-sourced by asking readers for “best list” suggestions (the best of the best lists, if you will). We also include a book giveaway in every email. Our readers know there’s an incentive (free stuff!) in each newsletter.
This kind of content encourages participation and keeps readers coming back for more. Plus, it drives visitors to their website. For example, on June 7 when they sent a BookPageXTRA mailing, 75% of traffic to their site came from their enewsletter.
And they’ve got even more up their sleeves. They recently ran a promotion to get their Book of the Day audience up to 10,000 members. Talk about attractive incentives: they gave away a box of 10 books and a gift card to their 10,000th subscriber, and they encouraged current subscribers to share the promotion via email and social media. Random “sharers” were awarded with books, too. It was wildly popular, earning more than 400 new signups in ten days. And it was a great way to forge connections between their emails, social networks and blog. (Read more about the promotion here.)
Why we like it
An easy-to-spot signup form and segmented audience groups? Check. An auto-responder to welcome new subscribers? Check. Different content for different groups? A varied sending strategy (daily, bimonthly, monthly)? Check and check. A content strategy that takes into account reader participation and re-engagement? Ch– Well, you get the idea. BookPage is doing email marketing right, and it pays off in fantastic response rates, reader loyalty and new subscribers.
In short: Follow BookPage’s lead, and think strategically about your emails. Use brainstorming sessions to mine your team for ideas, think about sending frequency and differentiate your mailings by audience group. Find ways to connect your email strategy to other channels. Must you do it all? Certainly not. But do the things that make sense for your business, and realize that a smart strategy doesn’t just spring forth — it must be sustained.
We’d love to hear more about your organization’s email marketing strategy. Share your success story in the comments below, or tell us over on Twitter.
Emma City Guide: Austin, TX
Tour Austin with Emma and meet a few customer favorites
If the warm weather is beckoning you to take to the open road, consider visiting Austin, Texas, home to one of Emma’s satellite offices. We’re proud to power emails for so many local Austin businesses and organizations, helping them stay in touch with locals and visitors alike.
I’ve visited Austin a handful of times to see family, and with each trip I’ve focused almost solely on stuffing myself to the gills with breakfast tacos and barbecue. Today, I’m taking a virtual vacation to Austin, and I’m stepping outside my comfort (food) zone to visit some fun Emma customers.
Rowing Dock uses Emma to announce classes, camps and special events.
Rowing Dock
2418 Stratford Dr
After a cup of coffee and okay, probably a breakfast taco or two, I’d head down to Lady Bird Lake (formerly known as Town Lake) and take advantage of Rowing Dock’s kayak, paddle boat and stand-up paddle board rentals. Rowing Dock offers summer camps for kids and rowing classes for adults, but I’d probably opt to rent a kayak and wind my way around the lake, taking in the sites before the summer heat really sets in.
+ See a recent email campaign
+ Visit their website
Join the Dress Shop's mailing list and you'll receive a special offer on your birthday. Party dress, anyone?
Dress Shop
315 Congress Ave
Leslie Gandy opened this boutique in 2009 and stocks colorful frocks for any occasion. Leslie does a great job of keeping in touch with customers and fans through email and Facebook, so even if you can’t visit the storefront it’s easy to have a virtual Dress Shop experience: just pick out a dress online and Leslie will ship it to you.
+ See Dress Shop’s birthday email
+ Visit their website
A stylish signup form for 2nd Street District, "where Texas warmth meets Austin cool."
2nd Street District
Austin’s 2nd Street District is populated by more than 50 shops and restaurants, just a block off Cesar Chavez. Their website touts special deals and events, giving visitors an overview of all the sweet deals and delicious dishes (and cocktails!) 2nd Street District has to offer. The site also provides ways to stay in touch over Facebook, Twitter, and of course, email, thanks to a smartly placed signup form for visitors to subscribe to email newsletters.
+ See a recent email campaign
+ Visit their website
Plain Ivey Jane's custom email stationery reflects the retro feel of their website.
Plain Ivey Jane
408 W. 2nd St
Clearly I’m in the market for some new summer dresses, and I’m smitten with Plain Ivey Jane. This dress shop in the 2nd Street District offers new designer dresses at a discount. At any given time, you’ll find deals on Nicole Miller, Betsey Johnson and Marc by Marc Jacobs, and as owner Sarah Reeves puts it, “It’s not the type of store that you fall in love with a dress, then have to save up for it. Instead, you can buy that dress and two others.”
+ See a recent email campaign
+ Visit their website
A refreshing Blue Bonnet Tea awaits you at Eddie V's.
Eddie V’s
301 E. 5th St
After a full day of outdoor fun and shopping, I can’t imagine anything more satisfying than a meal at Eddie V’s Edgewater Grill. This upscale seafood restaurant is part of the Eddie V’s family of restaurants in Texas, Arizona and California, and it’s the perfect place to wear a newly acquired dress and enjoy a signature cocktail — like the Blue Bonnet Tea — with my tuna steak dinner. Eddie V’s uses Emma to promote special menu offerings and send personalized greetings to customers on special occasions, like wedding anniversaries.
+ See a recent email campaign
+ Visit their website
Alamo uses Emma to share their show schedule and link back to features on their website.
Alamo Drafthouse
320 E. 6th St
After classing it up at Eddie V’s, I’d probably feel inclined to close out my evening at the Alamo Drafthouse, the best place to see a movie and drink a beer at the same time. I’d likely buy a ticket for their Dumb & Dumber Quote-Along and settle in with a Lone Star and a bucket of popcorn. I’d revel in the fact that I’m actually expected to shout out, “Samsonite! I was way off! I knew it started with an S, though.”
+ See a recent email campaign
+ Find additional Austin locations on their website
Well, there you have it: my perfect summer day in Austin. Stay tuned for more city guides from the places Emma calls home. Happy travels!
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If you like this post, check out more customer stories on our website.
Stylishly formatted email campaigns
How customers are making the most of Emma's layouts
We’re big fans of design, and it’s one of the reasons why our design team handcrafts email stationery for our customers. A stylishly branded stationery — one that fits your aesthetic and is unlike any other email stationery out there — is quite a start, but you’ve still got to fill your email with content. Staring at a blank campaign can be downright daunting, and we hope that our Oh-Blather-I’m-Stuck List of 12 quick content ideas is helpful.
But what if you’ve got a different challenge? Maybe you’ve got plenty of content but not enough inspiration about how to lay it out in an email. This kind of problem can be just as daunting, and we’re always on the lookout for customers who are finding creative ways to display their content.
Let’s take a look at five customers who are using Emma’s simple, newsletter and advanced layouts in lovely ways — and what you can learn from them.
Mocha Club | Layout: Newsletter 12
Click the campaign example to see the full version.
The Newsletter 12 layout combines alternating text and image boxes and works best if you’ve got several separate updates or stories. And don’t forget to make use of the image caption placeholders.
Why it works:
- Mocha Club keeps each story section short ‘n’ sweet, linking to story continuations on their website and blog.
- Alternating images are the same size across the campaign, and there’s a nice balance of graphics and text.
The Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) | Layout: Advanced 14
Click the campaign example to see the full version.
The Advanced 14 layout is similar to a few of the newsletter layouts and includes a sidebar along the right side that you can use for recurring stories, ads or special promotions.
Why it works:
- Like Mocha Club, SoDA uses small — and equally sized — images, appropriate for an email environment. No over-powering, slow-to-load images here.
- The sidebar is well-utilized, with a stand-alone blurb about sponsorship.
Denver Museum of Nature & Science | Layout: Simple 5
Click the campaign example to see the full version.
The Simple 5 layout — with an image slot on the right and wrapping text box on the left — is perfect for shorter emails and announcements.
Why it works:
- The height of the image matches the length of the text, creating visual balance.
- If the campaign winds up in an inbox that doesn’t display images by default, its message won’t be lost.
Gray Photography | Layout: Simple 8
Click the campaign example to see the full version.
The Simple 8 layout includes a series of centered image slots separated by text boxes. It’s ideal for sharing larger images with your audience. (We recommend images of 480 x 480 pixels or smaller.)
Why it works:
- The prominent wedding picture immediately gives context — this email is all about wedding photography workshops.
- No need to over-stuff your email. Here, Gray Photography makes their point using two image slots and two text boxes. They’ve left the other placeholders blank, and those unused image and text boxes simply auto-hide.
Pigeon Toe Ceramics | Layout: Advanced 4
Click the campaign example to see the full version.
The Advanced 4 layout is a good choice if you have a set of products to display (just keep images to around 120 x 120 pixels).
Why it works:
- Pigeon Toe uploads small, equally sized images so that alignment is consistent across the campaign.
- The images are more or less in the same color family so they work together, rather than creating visual clutter.
I hope these stylish campaigns give you some ideas for your own. And the next time you create a beauty of a campaign, we’d love to see it. Share its online URL in the comments below, and you may find yourself featured in a future blog post. Happy formatting!
Rumours Wine & Art Bar’s stylish email makeover
A fresh email strategy and a brand new look for a Nashville hot spot
I love a makeover. There’s something magical about seeing a sweeping, marked improvement and wondering about the journey from point A to point B. You can imagine my excitement, then, when I saw such a makeover pop into my inbox recently.
My favorite Nashville wine bar, Rumours, is an anchor of the trendy 12th South neighborhood and a top-notch spot with a relaxed, artful atmosphere. Over the years, co-owner Christy Shuff has worked to ensure Rumours’ role as a vibrant contributor to (and supporter of) Nashville’s local business community — and becoming one of Emma’s first clients in 2005 was just one part of that initiative.
Since then, Rumours’ owners have been intentional about informing their patrons of upcoming specials and events. Christy’s business partner handled the responsibility of email campaigns in the early days, using a stationery that served them well for a number of years.
The time eventually came for an update, but amid the chaos of owning and running a restaurant, it was a project that ended up on the back burner. Rumours continued to send email campaigns, but without a stationery design to frame the content. As a result, this fabulous hot spot’s mailings weren’t capturing their fun personality and stylish image.
Then came January of this year, when Christy’s decision to re-evaluate their email strategy led her to our design team. Emma designer Elizabeth Williams took a look at the Rumours brand and crafted something that artfully, dynamically blends the caliber of the restaurant with the spunk of the atmosphere. That new design inspired Christy to take a fresh look at the content layout too, and the result is impressive — it brings Rumours’ style to the forefront of their emails.
“[Our campaigns] have a more professional, structured format now,” says Christy. “It’s as if the right background for a painting had finally shown itself. I’ve received many compliments on our campaigns and feel that our message looks and feels more professional.”
Just look at the profound difference between the old campaign and the new. We are so proud of Christy and Rumours — not just for making good design a priority, but for having the tenacity to protect and promote the brand identity they’ve worked so hard to develop over the years. We raise our glass to you, Christy! Here’s to many more years of celebrations.
Kelley Kirker, our resident makeover expert, has taken fabulous turns as both Jackie *and* Marilyn in the last year. Her current style, created by her twin sister and stylist, was inspired by the fiery elegance of Julianne Moore. We can’t wait to see what Kelley tries next.
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If the Emma design team can reinvent your current email design — or help you dream up the first — please let us know: Give us a shout if you’d like to start an account. Or request a design if you’re already part of our community.
A tasty tour of a few Emma customers’ email campaigns
How folks in the food industry use email marketing with style
I like two things: delicious food and email marketing. Well, to be honest, I like a lot of other things too, but delicious food and email marketing are near the top of the list. So, naturally I not only sign up for a lot of restaurant and food-related lists, but I take notice when one of my favorite eateries delivers particularly engaging messages directly to my inbox.
If you think about it, restaurants rely heavily on visually engaging their potential customer base. You normally see a photograph of that delectable hamburger long before it ends up in your belly. Email marketing is a personal and direct form of communication, allowing restaurants to carefully choose the content and the timing of their messages to best capture the attention of hungry fans like me. Here are a just a few campaigns that recently caught my attention. Bon Appetite!
Who'd turn down free guacamole?
Taco Mamacita
Free guacamole? Yes, please! After I signed up for Taco Mamacita’s email list, one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in Nashville, I immediately received an email offering me a reward for my interest. (Way to set up welcome triggers, Taco Mamacita.) You bet I paid Taco Mamacita a visit and used that coupon. But, let me set the record straight: The rumor that I signed up under several other assumed names over a short period of time and then went into a euphoric guacamole daze? It cannot be proven.
+ View the online version of this email campaign
+ Visit Taco Mamacita’s website
+ Set up your own welcome triggers
Olive & Sinclair's custom stationery frames their survey.
Olive & Sinclair
Olive & Sinclair, artisan chocolatiers based just miles from me, caught my attention in shops around town by having the most beautiful and innovative packaging I’ve ever seen on a chocolate bar. Their sense of style coupled with a remarkable product prompted me to sign up for updates. (If you’re a chocoholic too, sign up here.) Then, I received the survey to the right. I answered as honestly (and quickly!) as possible, praying that I’d get another email offering free chocolate for a year. I didn’t get that (maybe next time?), but I love that a local brand asked for my feedback.
+ See the survey
+ Visit Olive & Sinclair’s website
Great food. And equally great emails.
Frontera Grill
I’m a huge fan of the Bravo show Top Chef. Chef Rick Bayless won the first season of their masters round, which pits famous chefs head-to-head in competitions similar to the ones they once judged in previous seasons of regular Top Chef. Chef Rick Bayless also owns a little restaurant called Frontera Grill in Chicago. I haven’t been yet, but I get Rick’s emails nonetheless. He’s amazing. His food is amazing. And now his email tells me he’s offering brunch with bacon guacomole (remember my aforementioned love of guacamole?) and mimosas. Something tells me I need to make a trip to Frontera Grill in Chicago, um, right now.
+ See the online version of the email campaign
+ Visit Frontera Grill’s website
Is your hunger for tasty emails not satisfied quite yet? Click below to view a slideshow of some other restaurants and food-related companies that use our service to spread the good word.
Click to see some yummy email campaigns.
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Interested in partnering with Emma to send stylish emails? Each Emma account starts with a custom design. and we’d love to help you translate your brand to the campaigns you send. Find out more.
Mind your email’s images
How three Emma customers use well-sized images to elevate the design of their emails
In the email marketing industry, the adage is true: Less is more. And this is nowhere more true than when it comes to images in your emails. It may be tempting to splash your email with every image you created in Photoshop or mined on Google Images, but it’s better to practice restraint. Email benefits from simplicity and ease over complexity and bulk. After all, your email is being delivered to hundreds or thousands of inboxes that have their own way of rendering your campaign. If your images are too large or too many, your email runs the risk of being blocked or, even if it reaches the inbox, being poorly rendered.
Let’s take a look at three Emma customers who’ve used moderately-sized images to balance the text and tone of their campaigns.
Natural Touch Marketing, an Olympia, WA distributor of massage marketing tools and supplies, sends email campaigns twice monthly to their subscribers. This campaign spotlights a series of new business cards, promotional posters and clearance items. The images are modestly sized at around 215 x 180 pixels — large enough to see, but small enough that readers want to click through to the website to view larger versions. That pays off for Natural Touch Marketing with a 43% click-through rate to their website.
The send-off, at a glance.
> Sent Tues, Feb 1 at 3:11 pm to 2,041 people
> Subject: Stellar New Business Cards
> Open rate: 31% | Click-through rate: 43%
> Created with an Upload Your Own HTML template
The Harrison West Society is a nonprofit civic association in Columbus, OH that plants trees, builds parks, organizes public art projects, hosts social events and more. They spread the word to subscribers and fans in a monthly newsletter that’s equal parts update and entertainment. In this campaign, the images are 120 x 120 pixels, and they condense the news blurbs to balance the images (with “read more” links for continuations of the stories).
The send-off, at a glance.
> Sent Tues, Feb 1 at 2:00 pm to 187 people
> Subject: Harrison West Society – February 2011 e-Newsletter
> Open rate: 62% | Click-through rate: 47%
> Created using Emma’s newsletter 5 layout
Sawyer Design Associates, an interior architecture and design firm in Dallas, TX, is a co-branded Emma agency, partnering with Emma to offer email services to their clients. In a recent campaign, they alternate images of about 250 x 190 pixels using Emma’s newsletter 7 layout, resulting in a balanced, stylish email whose content takes center stage.
The send-off, at a glance.
> Sent Feb 17 at 1:08 pm to 235 people
> Subject: Stay warm. Do good work. Work for good.
> Open rate: 53% | Click-though rate: 4%
> Created using Emma’s newsletter 7 layout
Guarantee that your campaign’s images look good no matter where they end up by adhering to a few best practices:
- Avoid mega-sized images. Large images take longer to load and cause problems if your campaign becomes too big in terms of file size. 40KB is about as large as any single image should be, and 480 x 480 pixels or smaller is our recommendation for an image’s length and width.
- The more images in your campaign, the smaller each image should be. Visual symmetry is key. If you’re using Emma’s simple layouts, we recommend images of 480 x 480 pixels or smaller. A newsletter layout works well with images that are about 240 x 240 pixels. Our advanced layouts tend to be most successful with images that are around 120 x 120 pixels.
- Limit the number of images in the campaign. Our layouts have 10 or fewer image placeholders for a reason: More than 10 images may result in an email file size that’s too large for servers to digest. Additionally, too many images serve as a distraction to your email’s content. If you have more than 10 images, consider creating a landing page to further content, or save content for a part II installment.
Visit our Image FAQs page in our Help Guide for more tips, and let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.
A Portland non-profit lobbies for the arts
- CAN helps keep creativity flowing in Portland.
How one savvy non-profit uses Emma to make the arts sustainable.
In Portland, creativity runs deep. It flows in the rivers and crosses all the bridges. One of our clients, the Creative Advocacy Network (CAN), works tirelessly to keep those creative opportunities flowing for the entire city. They’re currently chipping away at a gutsy initiative to establish a sustainable public fund to ensure a thriving arts ecology for all Portland residents.
An Emma client since 2009, they were also a recipient of a free lifetime account courtesy of Emma 25 in 2010. Recently, we sat down with CAN’s assistant director, Emily Brod, to chat about how Emma helps drive their marketing strategy and where she finds inspiration in the Portland community.
To kick things off, will you tell us about some cool initiatives at CAN and how you’re using email marketing to support them?
CAN is leading the charge for a new dedicated stream of public funding for the arts. Our mission is simple — increase our region’s investment every year to bring arts and cultural experiences to life. We are here because we know that the arts inspire and educate our kids, revitalize our neighborhoods and fuel our economy. We also know that without public funding, many of our residents would no longer have access to the innumerable benefits of arts and culture.
CAN relies heavily on email as our main vehicle for communicating our goals, recruiting supporters and donors and celebrating our successes. When the City of Portland and the Regional Arts & Culture Council renewed their support for CAN in July 2010 with an investment of $100,000, they challenged us to build the movement. And build it, we did. We raised $50,000 in private donations. We also recruited 1,000 new supporters in just four months, signed on over 200 messengers to spread the word and exceeded our goal for memberships with new arts organizations.
What Emma feature do you love the most and why does it rock your world?
I really love the response module. Being able to see how and when people open our emails and what they click on is so helpful for us. With that data, we’re able to better focus our email campaigns to reach and engage the greatest number of people possible in the most effective way. Our smarter campaigns are really working. Over the past few months, we’ve seen an upward trend in both opens and clicks, which means more people are getting involved in all the great work we do.
Okay, now that we’ve talked shop for a bit, let’s switch gears. We’re both lucky enough to live and work in Portland. Describe your perfect Portland day.
I could happily spend the whole day at the Saturday Farmer’s Market. I love trying all the delicious samples, people-watching, listening to the music, finding fantastic food to cook for dinner, picking out a big bouquet of flowers, running into friends and strolling around on a warm, summer day with my family.
And, to get my art fix on, I use the brand new Public Art PDX iPhone app to take a walking tour of all of Portland’s amazing public art.
Portland’s got one of the most vibrant food scenes in the country and among the hotly debated titles in town is which place is serving the best burger. Whose got your vote?
I love the burgers at Little Big Burger. I love everything about them – the size, the juiciness, the flavor. Topped with chevre and paired with a side order of their awesome truffle fries, I’ve got one word for you: Mmmm.
What are three Portland non-profits that inspire you?
I’m on the board of directors for the Newspace Center for Photography, a fantastic non-profit that serves as a multidimensional photography resource center and community hub. Newspace has experienced tremendous growth over the last few years, adding more programming, while growing their audience size and physical footprint. They’ve also stayed true to their mission of providing a space and a community for photo enthusiasts regards of skill level or income.
Another great non-profit is Girls, Inc. Their mission is to inspire girls to be strong, smart and bold. After volunteering with them at a local elementary school, I think I was inspired just as much as the girls!
And Friends of Trees is always one of my favorites. This winter, they planted their 400,000th tree in Portland and have almost single-handedly changed the landscape of the city. Seriously. When my family planted a tree in front of our home this January, we learned that a PSU professor attributed Portland’s expanding tree canopy (one of few in the country) to the “Friends of Trees effect.” I love that I can raise my daughter in a city where a non-profit organization has such a huge impact on the environment, our health and the beauty of our community!
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A paper CAN Van ... also inspiring.
In Portland and want to get more involved in CAN’s efforts to champion the arts for every man, woman and child?
Head over to their site and check out all the ways you can help, and don’t forget to sign up for their emails while you’re there.
Free free to join CAN at the Regional Arts & Culture Council’s annual State of the Arts report at Portland City Hall on March 9 at 9:30 am to show your support.
Also, drop by Disjecta gallery (one of our favorite clients as well) and check out the legendary CAN Van immortalized in the Portland Paper Project. It promises to be the most amazing paper replica of Portland that you’ve ever seen.
Meet the Atlanta Falcons Football Club
We followed the Atlanta Falcons’ road to the NFL playoffs pretty closely, and not solely because of our Nashville office’s proximity to Atlanta (just shy of 300 miles, give or take a few Peachtree Road exits), nor because of our marketing team’s Cliff Corr and his penchant for sporting a tattered Falcons t-shirt during football season (although that didn’t hurt, either). We took special interest in the Falcons’ flight to playoff fame because they’re an Emma customer.
The Falcons use Emma to communicate with season ticket holders. Their red, distressed-style stationery design brings the energy of atlantafalcons.com — and the grit of the game — directly to the inbox. Messages range from administrative topics, like ticket renewal reminders, to player injury reports, pre-game primers and post-game wraps.
Using Emma's tools for a post-game wrap-up.
Post-game wraps like the one pictured deliver game summaries and stats to the fans who want them the most. The response rates on this campaign were outstanding, with a 39% open rate and an 18% click-through rate.
Nearly half of readers who clicked on a link clicked to watch the post-game reaction from head Coach Mike Smith. Even after a tough loss, when Falcons fans would be justified in drowning their sorrows in cheese fries at the Majestic, they’re checking their email for more information from the head coach. That’s good work out of Coach Smith and the team who designs the email campaigns.
The send-off, at a glance.
- Sent on Sunday, Jan 16 to 11,840 people
- Open rate: 39%
- Click-through rate: 18%
- Subject line: Your Post-game Wrap: Falcons vs. Packers, Divisional
- Created using an Upload Your Own HTML template
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Cliff wasn’t the only Emma staffer to shed a few tears after the playoffs, which got me thinking. Who would we want to win if we could start the season all over again? Nothing against this year’s contenders, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, but there’s no harm in dreaming of what might have been for those of us who cheer for other teams, right? I polled my Emma colleagues and, unsurprisingly, the three teams with the most votes all have connections to Nashville, home to Emma’s biggest office:
- Hometown team the Tennessee Titans.
- The New England Patriots. Head coach Bill Belichick’s father once coached at Vanderbilt University, and Bill was born in Nashville, presumably sent home in a hooded, three-quarter-sleeved onesie.
- The Chicago Bears. Quarterback Jay Cutler was a Vanderbilt standout before he was drafted to the NFL in 2006.
Emma is a member of the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group.
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